Tag Archives: Patricia Briggs

I started reading the Mercy Thompson books right smack-dab in the middle of the series. Since I had read all of the Alpha & Omega series, which is a spin-off, I actually found it really easy to fall into these books.

There’s been a war brewing between the Fae and humans ever since the human justice system failed to prosecute someone who had harmed a Fae’s child. In response to the growing tension, the werewolves have declared the feud none of their business and have worked to avoid getting trapped in the middle. This neutral stance is threatened when Mercy and her husband, Adam, decide to offer their pack’s protection to a child wanted by the Fae. To avoid all werewolves getting pulled into the war, Adam and Mercy’s pack is disowned and marked rogue. This leaves them completely on their own against the Fae and vulnerable to werewolves outside of their immediate pack. Continue reading →

Dead Heatis the long awaited fourth book in Patricia Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series. While this series can be read without reading the Mercy Thompson books (to which it has strong ties), I would highly recommend reading the Alpha and Omega stories in order, due to the world’s politics.

Taking a trip down to Arizona to buy a horse and see an old friend should’ve been a simple journey for mated werewolves, Anna and Charles Cornick. Unfortunately, things rarely go as planned for the pair, as they quickly find themselves in the middle of an investigation. Something has been hunting children in town and has made the mistake of attacking a family considered Pack. All signs are pointing to the Fae, even though they’ve all quarantined themselves away. Anna and Charles will have to step lightly as they look into the attack to avoid tipping the scales on the cold war between the Fae and humans.

At this point in the series, most of the dust between Anna and Charles has settled. They seem to have reached a point in their relationship where they’re both feeling secure and that shows here. There’s some mild tension between them about the possibility of a baby, but that takes an extreme backseat compared to the other things happening. I’m a huge fan of internal conflict between protagonists, so I definitely missed the tension in Charles and Anna’s relationship throughout Dead Heat.Continue reading →

Night Broken is number eight in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series and my introduction to the books.

After a late night visit from Fae Lord, Alistair Beauclaire, Mercy is given seven days to retrieve an artifact from Coyote. Unfortunately, no one seems to know how to find him and Mercy isn’t currently at the top of her game. A panicked phone call had forced Mercy and her husband, Adam, to open their home to his ex-wife, Christy. Now Christy is living with them as they protect her from a homicidal stalker.

Briggs is an engaging writer, but I have a problem with the fact that the rape of her heroines is a device she uses repeatedly. I found it hard enough to deal with it in her Alpha and Omega series, whose heroine has a brutal history of being repeatedly gang raped. So, I wasn’t chomping at the bit to dive into these books since I knew that, in one of the earlier stories, Mercy is sexually assaulted. In Night Broken, I was a little disturbed by how the rape was referred to consistently as just an assault. If I hadn’t known about it prior to going into the story I would’ve assumed that Mercy had just been beat-up. I was also horrified that there’s a video of it floating around, which almost everyone seems to have seen. I was further disturbed by the fact that everyone ignores what happened to Mercy and instead concentrates on how awesome/terrifying Adam was in it when he took out her attacker. This is not what should be concentrated on here. Why does it seems like the tape is getting passed around? Why does no one in this book see it as an extreme violation to have seen this tape? Why isn’t Mercy more upset by it? I really despised how this aspect was handled throughout the story.

Originally, I had chosen to start with this Mercy book because the plot interested me the most. I’m a sucker for stories where established relationships are going through a difficult time while danger stalks them. However, it didn’t work for me here. Mercy is having a tough time as Christy attempts to manipulate her way back into Adam’s life. Instead of doing anything about it, Mercy just keeps quiet. She constantly plays the martyr throughout this novel. By the end, I was so tired of her accepting the blame for every issue that arose and trying to take the heat for people who were at fault.

I also had a huge problem with how Adam handled Christy. He did nothing to protect his relationship with Mercy. If anything, I would say that he piled onto the issue by catering to Christy’s requests. I wasn’t on board with the excuse for his actions being that he didn’t want Mercy to look jealous and petty. I can understand (sort of) why Mercy would be concerned about everyone seeing her that way, as she’s trying to win people over. However, why is Adam so concerned by it? He’s in charge and people seem to adore him. Setting some clear boundaries and backing-up his wife instead of his ex should’ve been a no-brainer. I was further frustrated at how, by the end, nothing came from all the drama with Christy’s manipulations. We spent the majority of the book on Mercy’s angst around the topic and there was no real conclusion to it. The only thing I can think of is that Christy will still be flitting around in the next book and that’s why there was no closure there.

Despite my issues with the novel, I enjoyed the plot around Christy’s stalker and Briggs’ writing style is very smooth. It’s what kept me reading. However, I won’t be picking-up another Mercy book. I didn’t enjoy the characters, or their relationships with each other, enough to read another one. I’ll be sticking with just Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series for now.

Fair Gameis the third book in Patricia Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series. In this addition, Charles is struggling with how brutal the axe-man role has gotten now that people know werewolves exist. After Bram and Anna recognize how much Charles is struggling, it’s decided that he should go with Anna to assist in solving a spree of murders. Bram and Anna both hope that by giving Charles an opportunity to help people, rather than act as executioner, will help him overcome his struggle.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the previous books in the series, but it was still a great addition. My main problem was that too much time had passed in Anna and Charles’ world between Hunting Ground and this one. In Hunting Ground, Anna was really struggling with her past and her new place in Charles’ life. At the end of that book, there were still a lot of emotional issues that Anna needed to overcome. As Fair Game opens, it looks like Anna has solved all those issues off-page. Suddenly she’s confident enough to not only face-off with Bram (the alpha) but to argue with him while he’s in a rage. I was thrown by this because it’s a huge difference from Anna in the first two books. In Hunting Ground, she couldn’t even sit in the same room with alpha wolves. Now she can stand her ground against one of the most powerful ones out there. This huge leap in Anna’s progress made it feel like I somehow missed a short story or novel that would explain where this new confidence came from.

Aside from the sudden change in Anna’s mental state, I really loved the story-line here. It was great to see Anna get to be the stable one in the relationship and Charles be vulnerable when in the previous books it was the other way around. This gave a feeling of equality and balance to their relationship. The side-characters were also intriguing, especially in regards to the ending. I’m looking forward to seeing where Briggs will take this series with Dead Heat (book 4) which comes out March 3rd 2015.